Winter blues

The gray is beginning to affect even me.
Everywhere I look the landscape is painted in neutral colors.
And, although I find it relaxing to sit and look out over this colorless water backed by a white winter sky, I would rather be engaged with it, wading the shallows or peeking under rocks.

The silvery ice is almost gone.
Two birds fly past. Gulls. White and gray.
Above us on the bank, cedar trees in drab olive tones drop needles onto the rocks at the shoreline where we sit, bundled up, having lunch, wiggling toes to stay warm.


The intricate details of the fossils lining the shore are absorbing. And the afternoon light slants low upon them through the bare trees from across the cove.
All these little creatures...450 million years ago, now washing free from the gray shale.







I remember what it felt like to watch my children sleeping--a peaceful rest, while I waited for them to wake. How I looked forward to what we would be able to do together.
And how our lives paused until each nap was done.

Winter is about darkness and rest.
As those who long to engage with the earth, wait for her to wake.

Catching the winter blues

Caesar Creek State Park is well known for its fossils--brachiopods and bryozoans from the Ordovician period.
And one of the largest complete trilobites,
now in the Smithsonian.

A Sidewalk Going Nowhere, continued

(Story begins here.)



Living in harmony with nature has been the “lifestyle” that shapes our decisions for this property. There’s a ring of manicured land around our house, but beyond that, much grows, untamed.
The pastures have returned to fields of wild flowers--a buffet for butterflies and birds. The ponds wear bright green blankets of growth, hiding frogs whose voices emerge on muggy summer evenings. The mighty oak’s woods stretch forth fingers as small trees. And a barred owl rests in the pines.

The house itself is perched on the top of a hill which drops to a ravine behind. From the back door, a sidewalk going nowhere leads to its edge—a remnant from a time when nature called to people here, a century ago.
Today these woods shelter the animals who walk the creek beds connecting neighboring properties. In the evening, a large opossum scavenges beneath the feeders outside my kitchen window. Many mornings I wake to glimpse a raccoon just slipping back to bed in his hollow tree.
A large hickory stands just a few feet away, dropping showers of nuts on the roof each fall. Gray squirrels carry large sycamore leaves high into her branches, fluffing their nests against winter’s chill.
And the deer rest, barely seen, on the leafy banks.
We are richly rewarded for this closeness.

But, with every season, we battle for the rights to dwell here.
The smallest crack is an invitation to live within the house on the hill.
Fred patrols the spaces on his side of the wall; I do my best on the other—diligently searching for the mouse nest being beautifully decorated with the fringe--each day growing shorter, from my living room rug.

Mice I can deal with.
What’s settled behind my foyer wall, I cannot.


It is chewing with great assertion in this 2-story space—the gnawing magnified by the hollowness of the wall and heard easily throughout the house.
We sit at dinner, tossing worried looks across the table. How does one deal with an enemy unseen, in a space that has no access?

Last week, it was quiet for a few days. Maybe our banging and thumping against the wall had encouraged this bold visitor to move out?

No.

This week, as soon as I turned the key arriving home from work, the chomping had resumed, with added crunching intensity. I imagine the stealthy creature, crowbar in hand, remodeling the space to suit his wishes. In the 2 weeks that we’ve been charmed by its presence, it seems to be moving higher, toward the wall behind the upstairs bathroom.

I rap loudly against the wall beneath him and scream at the invisible gnawing monster in a high-pitched voice, stamping my feet in an effort to rattle him.
Now he’s approaching Fred’s territory, and Fred had better wake up hungry.

I don’t wish to be greeted in the bathroom one night—by its beady little eyes.

House as seen from
Sidewalk going Nowhere

(to be continued here)

Photographic Interlude, A Sidewalk Going Nowhere

The photos that complement A Sidewalk Going Nowhere show the 1835 house, a work in progress.

Fields on the hill, with barn behind and house top far left

House in spring, addition behind

Backdoor, brick being repointed


Chicken coop with pasture in front, summer

Wood trim, front door

Shutter dog and brick front


Old window glass


Fireplace trim and mantel


Fireplace trim and oak floor


Living room doorknob and lock


Bathroom doorknob and lock

Back stone slab steps

A Sidewalk Going Nowhere

There’s a battle brewing—within the walls of my house.
As yet, I have not determined the nature of my enemy, except to say that it is “of Nature.”

The 1835 house we live in was, as many original homes in this area, badly in need of work when we found it. But the land was good. After all, a house can be repaired--the land, less so. With a stand of oaks behind and acres of rolling pastures, we bought the old farm 15 years ago, more excited about what we might find in the pond or be able to raise in the barn, than the challenges the old house would throw at us.

The two small upstairs bedrooms were barely adequate for our family of four--not to mention the closet problem. There were none.

The kitchen was what had originally been added to the brick house as a woodshed. An unfinished dark room, tacked onto the back of the house, with bare rafters overhead, barn-board walls, and a sloping floor—really only a problem, if you had applesauce on your plate, or peas.
An electric heater, plugged in under the sink, would prevent the pipes from freezing in the winter.

Our bedroom had what was probably the feature of which the sellers were most proud—its own toilet, placed in the far corner of a green-floored, attic-like space adjacent to it and situated under the eaves. Beside it, the only window in the room.
The perfect place to sit.
And read.

We wasted no time that next summer, putting on an addition—giving us the best of both worlds.
A house up front, with “character” and “charm.”
An addition behind, with everything else.

It is in this space between the structures, old and new, that strange sounds are heard.

(to be continued here)

Six months ago today…

“I took a day to search for God,
And found Him not; but as I trod,


By rocky ledge, through woods untamed,
Just where one scarlet lily flamed,


I saw His footprint in the sod.”

~William Bliss Carman


We came across these Wood Lilies clustered in a grassy area at the summit of Sargent Mtn. in Maine, 6 months ago today.
They’re the native lilies, not like the invasive Daylilies that crowd our ditches—and they bloom with their faces upward. In many areas, they’re threatened, but on this mountaintop they’ve remained safe.
Like beacons, they bloom, magnificent in the bright sunshine.



As the rain pelts my window, another gray day is forecast for tomorrow.
But, I recall wood lilies and granite.
I know what it feels like to be on top of the world.

Sun-kissed planet

The ice will be gone tomorrow.
Today’s sunshine left a kiss—a now frozen starburst within the mosaic surface of our pond.

We skated here last night, under a starry sky—gazing off to the point beyond all brightness. And savored the moments alone with our thoughts.


A speck of life in this vast darkness.

Where discussions revolve around foreign policy and health care, immigration and gun control, budget and economy.

While all that really matters—
revolves around the sun.

When Nature takes her own

White snow, his blanket,
he rests on the forest floor.
Oaks stand watch above.

Dressed in the richness
of these woods—red, orange, brown.
Lord of air, fallen.

Little feet scurry
to see what strangeness lies here.
Still, they touch him not.

I found the body of a Red-shouldered Hawk, perfect in every way, preserved by the snow in the woods.
He appears to have broken his neck.
I wrapped him well and will carry him to CNC.

He will be admired by many,
but remembered by me.

Please click to enlarge.